Next-Generation Partnering: Why Your Peers May Be the Key to Your Success

The secret of success no longer requires you to hoard secrets. In fact, as SAP is urging its partners to collaborate like never before — to share information, share ideas and, most importantly, share customers.

As the Beatles once so presciently sang, “I get by with a little help from my friends. Gonna try with a little help from my friends.”

In a world where opportunities for SAP partners are expected to grow to $200 billion by 2024, partnering with your fellow partners means a lot: more chances for exposure, more relationships, more money – which is, after all, the root of sustained success.

In other words, you will have a better shot to reach your full potential if you have a little help from your friends.

SAP believes partner-to-partner networking is essential in today’s world of the Intelligent Enterprise. In fact, it is a key tenant of SAP’s Next-Generation Partnering movement, focused on better partner experiences to fuel better customer outcomes.

Teaming up with peers to create the best possible portfolio offers added value and improved experience for customers. It also opens doors to expand your industry, geographical and technological capabilities. Think about it: Isn’t it easier and less expensive to outsource a field of expertise to a trusted partner, rather than create the infrastructure of that field of expertise internally — all while keeping the customer happy and engaged?

In essence, you can boost your cache among prospects and widen the net of potential clients while continuing to focus on what you do best.

What It Looks Like

One SAP partner that has seen success through partner-to-partner collaboration is Ingentis. The Germany-based company specializes in org chart software and HR add-ons that facilitate HR processes.

Ingentis works closely with many SAP PartnerEdge “Sell” partners to boost the standard org chart capabilities of SAP SuccessFactors. Their org.manager extension allows customers to create advanced, flexible and customizable org charts that offer easy reorganization and clear overviews of how KPIs would change in any scenario.

“Yes, this enables you to have more business,” said Markus Eckl, global head of strategic alliances and partnering at Ingentis. “But at its core, this is about much more than that. This is about giving customers what they want, what they need, and leaving them satisfied.”

What It Takes

By identifying areas where you can best apply your expertise (and understanding areas where you cannot), you can capitalize on the growth of the partner economy by aggregating resources and compounding opportunity. There is, after all, no “I” in partner.

SAP offers partners resources to find peers with complementary skill sets that will ensure customers get everything they need, when they need it, including:

SAP Partner Finder — Provides a place where you can find peers and team up on opportunities that both companies might not qualify for on their own.

SAP App Center — Features nearly 2,000 applications that have been tested for quality and certified for integration with SAP solutions.

SAP-Qualified Partner-Packaged Solutions — Highlights solutions, enabling you to collaborate with peers to fill gaps in your own coverage and offer packages with standard costs, fixed scope and quicker implementation.

Peer networking calls for radical openness and collaboration. But, in turn, it will dramatically boost the growth of the partner economy and benefit everyone involved.

What’s Next

Forward-thinking leaders continuously look for ways to anticipate customer needs more quickly, so they can build strategies that deliver on them. With partner-to-partner networking, they can speed up the entire process, all while creating better strategies.

Ready to get started? Dive into the resources mentioned above to begin your partner networking journey. We are going to unlock the true power and potential of the partner economy and of the Intelligent Enterprise — and we’re going to do it together. Now’s our chance.